“I’m absolutely speechless. Does that Teacher Chen have some sort of delusions of persecution? He suspects anyone he sees a boy and girl getting a little close — with instincts that sharp for sniffing out trouble, he might as well open a detective agency specializing in catching cheaters!” Fang Zhixiao plopped herself back down in her seat, grumbling away, and picked up a half-eaten skewer to stuff back in her mouth.

Li Kuiyi put down her phone and smiled. “He’s not that old, though, is he? He must be only in his forties — isn’t calling him an ‘old fossil’ a bit much?”

“Is that the point?!” Fang Zhixiao shot her a look. “And it’s not like I said anything wrong either. Even if he’s only in his forties, his thinking is as feudal as some ancient relic from the Qing Dynasty. What era is this — ‘boys and girls should have as little to do with each other as possible’ — does he not know the country has already started gradually relaxing the two-child policy?”

Li Kuiyi: “…”

What kind of logic was that.

“Oh right — you told Teacher Chen your class borrowed He Youyuan’s gouache to paint part of your bulletin board. What if it gets exposed?” Fang Zhixiao suddenly thought of this, and furrowed her brow in worried concern.

“It’s fine. Our class’s bulletin board does actually use gouache for part of it, and I’ve already let our class’s publicity officer know, so it shouldn’t be exposed.”

“Good.” Fang Zhixiao bit into her skewer with an impish grin. “Teacher Chen probably couldn’t imagine in his wildest dreams that his most beloved year-level first-place student was lying straight to his face. Ha — serves him right. That’s what you call meeting your match.”

Li Kuiyi: “What?”

“Eh, that’s just the general idea, you get it.” Fang Zhixiao was too lazy to explain, and as she glanced around, she suddenly realized something was off. “Wait, where did He Youyuan go?”

That was right — He Youyuan’s seat was empty. Li Kuiyi looked around and, not finding him, simply stood up and gazed farther down the long street into the distance.

The night had grown deeper and denser, yet the surroundings were still noisy and clamorous. Colorful neon signs on the barbecue street blinked without rest. The charcoal in the grills sent up white wisps of smoke, punctuated now and then by a sharp sizzle, as if the scorching heat of the waning summer were being run through a pot of hot oil.

But turning back the other way, that end was dim and hushed, cut off from the crowd, cut off from almost all the light, with an invisible wall of sorts dividing the two halves of the world —

She saw him standing beneath a tree, on a phone call. His left arm was folded over his right, his head slightly lowered, the moonlight filtering down in sparse, scattered patches, making the outline of him hazy and indistinct, and giving his whole figure a certain quality of stillness — aloof from the noise and clamor of the world.

“Oh, he’s over there making a phone call.” Li Kuiyi shifted her stool forward a little and sat back down, and a thought crossed her mind for no particular reason: no wonder so many people like him — looking at him from here, the person really is rather captivating.

The saying that “distance creates beauty” had never been so perfectly embodied as it was in him.

Two minutes later, He Youyuan came back holding his phone, and explained, “Got a phone call.” He paused, then added, “From my mom.”

“Oh.” Li Kuiyi uttered a faint, absentminded reply.

The last time, at the student affairs office, He Youyuan had been summoned for supposedly being in a relationship, and the one who came as his guardian was his aunt. It was rare for an aunt to be listed as the guardian. Li Kuiyi couldn’t help but let her mind fill in a few blanks. Of course, now it seemed she had been overthinking it.

Unexpectedly, Fang Zhixiao burst out laughing at those few extra words He Youyuan had added.

Kid, your thoughts are just a little too transparent.

“What?” Li Kuiyi asked curiously.

“Nothing, nothing.” Fang Zhixiao laughed until her shoulders shook. Afraid she would laugh the food out of her mouth, she covered it with her hand, but her eyes looked over at He Youyuan with a triumphant expression that said, I see right through you.

He Youyuan felt a chill when he saw her gaze settle on him. Hang on — how were the scowling pineapple and her friend both the same: making a habit of laughing at him for no reason?

What had he done?

Thinking back carefully, from the time he had come back after the phone call to right now, he had said exactly nine characters in total.

“Got a phone call.”

“From my mom.”

Chewing it over slowly, He Youyuan suddenly understood: Fang Zhixiao must think he had been reporting back to the scowling pineapple!

He hadn’t! He never did anything like that! He had just… been led by something he couldn’t explain.

His ears went instantly burning hot. What on earth — clearly it was the scowling pineapple who liked him, so why did it suddenly seem as if he liked the scowling pineapple too?

He would admit that he wanted the scowling pineapple to like him, because he thought Li Kuiyi was a tough nut to crack — and how satisfying it was to conquer a tough nut! But he absolutely could not possibly like her: he liked gentler girls, he liked being coaxed and pampered, and she only ever made him angry. If he were with her, he would probably be dead of fury before he turned thirty.

So — his impulse to offer her pointers on how to pursue him, his initiative in explaining that it had been his mom calling — it was all this inexplicable competitive spirit driving him. He just wanted the scowling pineapple to keep liking him, while he sat in his lofty position enjoying her regard.

Right. That was exactly it.

He Youyuan successfully convinced himself.

Think what you like — he didn’t care. He gave Fang Zhixiao a sideways glance, walked back to his seat, picked up his bag from the stool, and said flatly, “I’m heading home.”

Already?

Li Kuiyi looked up, mildly surprised. “Did your mom tell you to come home?”

“No.”

“Then you’re not going anywhere!” Li Kuiyi halted him.

He Youyuan failed to keep it together, and the corners of his mouth curved up ever so slightly, clearing away the gloominess of a moment before. See — the scowling pineapple liked him after all. She was trying to keep him here. She was just a bit too fierce about it. It would be better if she were a little gentler.

“You haven’t finished your skewers. Are you expecting the two of us to eat all of this?” Li Kuiyi pointed at the table. “Wasting food is shameful!”

He Youyuan: “…”

Could he interpret this as her trying to keep him there and just looking for an excuse?

He sat back down and glared at the person across from him with a stifled, brooding look, then inhaled two whole mushroom heads in one bite.

For some reason, the atmosphere around the small square table had suddenly become strange — nobody spoke for a good long while, a stark contrast to the liveliness at every other table.

After managing to finish off a bit more food with some effort, He Youyuan stood up again and said, “I really am heading home.”

He thought for a moment and decided to say something polite regardless. “You two should finish eating and go home soon. Be… be careful on the way.”

“All right, you too. Bye.” Li Kuiyi gave a small wave.

“Bye.” He Youyuan had his bag slung over one shoulder, doing his best to appear relaxed and casual, and strode off with his long legs without looking back once.

Once he was some distance away, Fang Zhixiao immediately lit up her phone to check the time. “It’s barely past eight! Such a good little boy, going home this early!”

“So what were you laughing at him about just now?”

At the mention of it, Fang Zhixiao launched into an animated, gesturing explanation, then nudged Li Kuiyi with her elbow: “I’m telling you, he is one hundred percent interested in you.”

That seemed far too much of a stretch.

“Your talent for seeing things that aren’t there is every bit as sharp as Teacher Chen’s.” Li Kuiyi said mildly.

“Hmph — believe it or not.”

Li Kuiyi of course did not believe it. Sometimes she didn’t even believe an “I like you” said to her face — how could she believe these strange little gestures?

She remembered clearly that in junior high, there had been a boy in her class who used to pick on her constantly — the very low-level kind of picking on her: giving her all sorts of nicknames, yanking her hair, pulling away her stool, until she was furious enough to hit him with her textbook every day. Then at graduation, he told her he liked her, and she was nearly knocked off her feet. She couldn’t understand how his brain was wired.

So on the day junior high graduation photos were taken, a strange little scene played out in a quiet corner of the school.

“Li Kuiyi, I like you.”

“…I don’t believe you.”

“…”

If He Youyuan actually liked her, she would also want to be knocked off her feet, because it would make her doubt that any boy in this world was normal.

Li Kuiyi buried her head in her food and ate until she was rather stuffed.

It was all He Youyuan’s fault, leaving behind so much of his portion for her and Fang Zhixiao to deal with.

She stood up to go pay the bill, and then she suddenly noticed that He Youyuan’s rinse bucket had been left under the table — he hadn’t taken it with him.

Honestly, such a scatterbrain.

Fang Zhixiao, however, contemplated with a thoughtful look: “Do you think he might have left it on purpose? If you go to return his rinse bucket, wouldn’t it create another chance for you two to run into each other?”

Li Kuiyi: “…”

“What’s more, you and he are in the same class — if anyone’s returning it, it should be you.”

“Heh, well, I’m not returning it. You return it.”

Hopeless, both of them.

Li Kuiyi marched off in exasperation, carrying his rinse bucket, and went to settle the bill with the proprietor — only to find the proprietor saying, “That small square table? A boy already paid for it just now. Quite a good-looking kid.”

“Oh, is that so!” Fang Zhixiao said with a sly laugh, putting on a melodramatic tone. “Which kind-hearted soul was that? And why would they pay the bill for us?”

Li Kuiyi had had enough, and after asking the proprietor the total, she pulled her away.

Back home, the first thing she did was send He Youyuan a message: “Your rinse bucket was left with me.”

After a while, He Youyuan replied: “Oh.”

Li Kuiyi: ?

A voice message came in. His voice was breezy and nonchalant, and from the background sounds, he was apparently playing a video game. “Bring it to me after the holiday.”

Really now — who did he think he was, ordering people around?

Li Kuiyi couldn’t stand it when anyone spoke to her in that tone of voice. She sent a voice message back so he could hear her displeasure loud and clear: “Do you not know how to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’?”

Silence for a long spell.

After quite some time, another message came through from the other side, in a tone that sounded like it was positively dying of aggrievement: “Please bring my rinse bucket to me after the holiday. Thank you.”

He Youyuan tossed aside his game, sank into the beanbag sofa, and sulked. Honestly — “please” and “thank you” were for people who didn’t know each other well! It wasn’t as if he’d asked something impossible.

Li Kuiyi, however, was quite pleased, and sent back an “OK” emoji very cooperatively. As for the money he had spent on the bill, she would return it to him together with the rinse bucket after the holiday.

If ordinary days passed like an arrow in flight, then holidays passed like a rocket. Li Kuiyi only went shopping with Fang Zhixiao once, read a new book, wrote a weekly journal entry, and finished half a math practice paper — and then the holiday was over.

Fang Zhixiao extended her deepest sympathies: “I guess this is what they mean by ‘those with ability must work harder.'”

Then she pursed her lips. “Honestly, my feelings about it are strange. If you say, ‘make-up classes during the holiday,’ obviously I’m not happy about that — but then when I see everyone else going to class while we’re still at home enjoying ourselves, I feel unsettled. It’s really not very fair of the school. Can’t everyone just enjoy themselves together? They had to go and make it special treatment for some.”

Li Kuiyi very much understood Fang Zhixiao’s feelings. Honestly, when Liu Xinzhao had announced that Class 1 would be having supplementary lessons, there had been quite a bit of grumbling in the class — but whether that grumbling contained a tiny little note of pride mixed in was another matter entirely.

The three days of supplementary classes also flew by, and the monthly exam arrived in rapid succession.

The exam room placements and seating order were arranged by order of entrance examination scores. Li Kuiyi, as a matter of course, was assigned to examination room number one, seat number one.

Qi Yu was right behind her.

He smiled at her and asked quietly, “Are you well prepared?”

Li Kuiyi nodded. “Very prepared.”

She said it with such certainty.